Ah, now that I found that paper (Organizing for the Future: The Army's Objective Force Cavalry Squadron by Major Marty M. Leners, United States Army, link ) again, it's 2x troops of Apaches, each with 2x platoons of 4x birds and a UAV platoon. This UAV was supposed to be something smaller than a Predator (so no paved runway required), current equivalent would be an RQ7 Shadow. A single Shadow system is 22 troops in 4ish Humvees (each with a trailer) and 3 operational drones with one spare. Gives a total of 16 Apaches and 3 UAVs per brigade, as part of the organic RSTA squadron, though I'm hoping that there would be more drones available.

And it looks like Army Combat Aviation Brigades have enlarged to a battalion of 24 Apaches plus a recon squadron of 24 Apaches, 12 RQ7 Shadows, and a company of MQ1C Gray Eagles (I think that's 12 birds and 5 ground control stations). The MQ1s, being a derivative of the Predator, need to have a paved runway or road to fly from, but everything else is rough-field capable.

That document is from 2001, and most of the proposed equipment no longer exists, sadly, but I believe that the proposal is sound. It would place an Air Cav troop at the BCT level, lessening reliance on the divisional CAB. I don't see it ballooning maintenance costs either- active-duty divisions already have the infrastructure for their CAB, and every single state's ARNG has at least one AASF to operate a company or more of assault or air ambulance UH-60s. The Air Cav troop would just be co-located with these existing assets.

Anything that gets aerial recon and CAS closer to the guys on the ground is a great plan in my book.

@Southern Phantom: yeah, it's an old document, but I snagged it for ideas for a scifi TO&E. Mix a bit of that, the Stryker Brigade, and the old FCS concepts along with some new toys and you get a pretty cool plausible near-future force that still makes sense if you bump up to grav tanks.

Kinda surprised that some of the ideas haven't been rolled out yet, to be honest. Like the Air Cav troops, complete with the UAV platoons.

Oh, and that should be 16 Apaches with 6 UAVs in the Squadron. It's 8 Apaches and 3 UAVs per troop. Gotta stop trying to do math at 0230!